


Concerning His Marriage

by Miss Roylott (Cress221)



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-06 08:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21223340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cress221/pseuds/Miss%20Roylott
Summary: A privately written exchange reveals Holmes's opinion about Watson's domestic life. Watch out for a change in narrator.





	Concerning His Marriage

From the start, I never had any objection to Watson marrying her. In fact, I encouraged the early stages of his budding romance, for I knew that if it were not Miss Morstan, then it would be someone else soon enough, and Miss Morstan, as I have remarked, was a most charming young lady, well worth his admiration. Certainly I did tell Watson after his engagement that I could not congratulate him, but it was not with bitterness, only disappointment that his mind and Miss Morstan's mind would henceforth be too easily clouded by emotion. My hopes for either of them to eventually learn to effectively apply my own methods in detective work were dashed by his proposal, as it meant that they had put irrational sentiment above such sublime work already.

Despite my disappointment in Watson's proposal, I willingly reassured him in subsequent days that I supported his marriage and was happy for his good fortune. Beneath these obligatory gestures of friendship, however, I privately knew that my other, baser hopes remained alive and well. That is, I knew that I still would be able to seduce Watson after he had married. Marriage to Miss Morstan, or indeed to any woman, would not preclude the possibility that Watson would be receptive to my overtures. Yes, Watson is a conventional man in many ways, but I had learned during our time together that his conventional nature could be ever so delicately nudged in new directions. The man had helped me to commit burglaries and let guilty criminals go free, after all!

So I had no doubts that once the honeymoon period of his wedded bliss had worn away, I could draw him back to Baker Street for more of our accustomed adventures, as well as draw him to my bed for some very new adventures indeed. So I saw him through his wedding ceremony, bid him farewell, and then waited patiently for his return.

It took him some months after his marriage before Watson at last sought me out at Baker Street, and in the meantime I occupied myself with my cases and with occasionally dropping by Paddington in disguise so that I might see how he was. Watson and his new bride had a few comical misadventures in getting their house comfortably furnished, their domestic staff broken in, and their practice filled with patients. In short, he was having a very pleasant start to his marriage.

When he arrived finally at Baker Street once more, he was fortunate to find me home, for I had been debating with myself for some time whether I should go over to his house and ask him to join me for a case. When Watson fortuitously arrived, I knew at last that it was no longer premature to think of bringing him back into my life.

So we had our case together, which lasted but three days, and Watson even stayed overnight on the second night. I made sure to tell him as he left me the next day that he should come by again if he retained any further interest in my "trivial" cases. Always susceptible to that lure, he accordingly returned with increasing frequency in the months to come.

I could see by the look in his eyes that he was falling under my spell again; there was a restlessness there and a gladness to share my bachelor life once more. We quickly became as close as we had been prior to his marriage. He had not realised how much he had missed me in his absence, and by stages I advanced us further than we had been before. Finally there came the night that the circumstances were right, and as Watson stayed overnight in Baker Street yet again, I climbed into his bed with him and made him mine at last. He was startled at first, but my kisses proved irresistibly persuasive, and I soon opened his eyes fully to the nature of our relationship.

In the morning when he woke beside me and remembered that he had to go home to his wife, he instinctively felt in need of reproaching himself, myself, or both of us for the betrayal of his vows. I soothed his agitated conscience and asked him how he could possibly regret our actions with shame, when he had for years wanted me to express softer human passions like devotion and love. I further assured him that, though I freely welcomed Miss Morstan having him in all the ordinary ways of domestic life, the rest of him had always belonged to me in a much deeper bond than marriage. I reminded him how our relations had always transgressed the conventional, had always existed on a plane superior to this mundane world.

He recalled our past together, and it gave him pause. I proposed that he go home as always, but that he also continually return to me too. She could have his love in that sphere, but I would have his love in this special sphere that we had already forged together long before he ever met her. If he doubted how we could surreptitiously love despite the confines of his marriage, he needed only to think of the way that we had already separated moral justice from the strict confines of the law.

So he left me quietly and with a fond kiss, returning to his respectable household once more. He continued to live enough in that other world that he performed all the expected duties of providing for his wife and having children with her. Yet he always returned to me for what he would never have from her--our danger, our adventure, our freedom, our trust, our fire. It was a simple division of lives, according to function and purpose. That is what life is about in our age, is it not? I have fortunately taught him well enough the actor's skill of living more than one role in his life.

So I have had him in my bed, and he has had me in his body and his heart, where I have always fit better than his wife ever did.

I can remember that on the night before I left him, as I ravished him in our hotel bed, he cried out my name as if dying and held onto me as if there would be no tomorrow. I had told him already that I would not remain with him, whether I survived my battle with Moriarty or not, as it was necessary that I should go on a government mission for my brother Mycroft. Still reluctant to let me go, he begged me to return to him whenever this indefinite mission should end, and I agreed, wishing him well with his family once he returned to London, as duty required of him.

It happened that during my absence, Mrs. Watson suffered an untimely death, leaving Watson to raise his children alone. I dreaded selfishly the thought that he might marry again to find them a new mother, but I could not risk the security breach of trying to contact him then. Mycroft fortunately assisted in finding a governess for the young Watsons, and moved by grief perhaps, my dear Watson did not seek someone new.

I at last was able to return to him after three years, finding a good moment to arrive while the children were away on holiday with the governess. Shedding my disguise as soon as I could, I took him into my arms again and asked him how he was now. He was silent for a time, seeming to be upset and shocked to see me. Then after a moment he took me to his bed, to confirm to himself that I was real and not a figment of his imagination.

In the throes of our intimate passion, he told me urgently that I should never leave him again, England and Mycroft be damned! I told him in return that, having had the experience of one wife, surely he should have no interest in acquiring another when he had me now. He found my jealousy oddly satisfying and groaned deeply as I permitted him to ravish me inside for the first time. It was my gesture, my gift to him, on my return. He chuckled at the awkward way that I surrendered to him, remarking that he fully appreciated the sacrifice involved in making Sherlock Holmes relinquish any control.

Thankfully, in the subsequent nights to come, he asked me only rarely to repeat that surrender, letting us fall into our former habits on most occasions. I brought him along on my cases with me, which he enjoyed with his customary fervour. When Watson's children returned with their governess, I stayed away a little while as Watson made arrangements to send them to proper boarding schools, having held onto them longer than is customary, out of loneliness. He also sold his practice and consented to move in with me at Baker Street again. So we were united once more, and we "christened" our old beds by my surrendering to him there.

Our life has been quiet and simple of late, tending to comfortable patterns that the citizenry at large would view as shocking if they knew, but which to us are most mild and inoffensive. Like any other long-settled couple, we often have no need to speak out loud lately, and it seems almost comical to me to realise how I have been tamed by him. In return for my corruption of Watson's morals, he has "weaned" me from the habit that so offended his sensibilities and has influenced me to be more moderate in my restless moods. So his irrational emotion has won over my cold reason, instead of the other way around.

And now that Watson's children have grown, and he has dragged me here to celebrate his daughter's engagement and his son's entry into university, I find myself feeling awkwardly out of place. I observed a look of boundless pride and beaming happiness in Watson's eyes as he embraced his children again, and it makes me doubt myself somehow.

All these years I have prided myself that I meant more to Watson than any woman, that I provided him a love no woman could give him. It seems clear, though, that his late wife gave him something that I could never give him--children. Family. Warm and emotional things that a sentimental man like himself prizes. I wonder whether our cluttered household in Baker Street ever could compete with his memories of his tidy home filled with smiling wife and children. Every man's dream, so I'm told. I realise I am an aging charlatan whose bag of conjuring tricks is almost empty.

* * *

Holmes, when I found that you had escaped the party and retreated here to our room, I thought you were merely tired and that the chattering of the guests had given you a headache. I started to pull the covers over you on the bed and give you a kiss before departing to let you sleep. But then I noticed you had fresh ink on your fingers, and thinking that you must have finally drafted the toast to my children that I had requested of you, I went to the desk and found these pages instead, pages which confess so much more than you would ever willingly say to me out loud.

You are still dreaming now, restlessly and unhappily it appears. I started to wake you, but I think I know a far better answer for these questions that you have seen fit to put into words. I locked the door, and wait now for you to wake to the familiar sound of my scratching pen.

You recount a brief and amusing history of our affair together, as if you alone were the instigator of our vices and our love. Do you truly see us that way? I have loved you--I still and will always love you--with a passion and fire that knows no bounds. The night that you climbed into my bed, I was surprised to learn that I interested you after all, for it had seemed that you had decided to not even try to claim me as your own, your precious career being more than you were willing to risk on me. --You had let so much time pass, what else could I think? I thought that I would simply have to make do without you, so I married and expected to live a merely pleasant, ordinary life with a woman I cared for, but not in the same way as you.

So you dally with my affections and vex me as only you can. But I love you all the same, and shall not tire of you for something so trivial as your age. If I did, then I should certainly fear that you shall leave me for my age as well! No, my dear Holmes, you do not mean less to me than my late wife or my children. Yes, I delight in their happiness and will love them always, for they are truly a part of me, but do not ever doubt how much you mean to me, Holmes. As you have said yourself, I have always belonged to you in a much deeper bond than marriage.

Ah, there you are. I thought I heard you stir in the bed, and then I felt you standing behind me doubtfully. Come read over my shoulder, then, and discover that you have nothing to fear. Indeed, if you find yourself still regretting that our relationship has dulled and become too tame lately, let me drive away those doubts too. While we have some time yet, let's "christen" this bed as well. We can do so your way, if you like.


End file.
